


59. strange feelings

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [244]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 16:13:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10030982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “Can you – tell me about the others,” Helena says. “So that. I know them. For when I meet them.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> How Did Helena Know To Tell Jesse That Alison Was In Rehab, a riveting song-and-dance number by me

“Brother- _sestra_ is safe,” Helena says, the first time Sarah pulls Siobhan’s truck over to the side of the road. Sarah is checking her phone to a text from Art: Felix is out of jail, back to the loft, something close to fine. “Yeah,” she says. “He’s good.”

“ _Sestra?_ ” Helena says, voice plaintive and small in the dark. Sarah turns in her seat to look at her: she’s sitting with her legs folded, and she looks weirdly small. Sarah wants her to get back behind the sniper rifle, where she was terrifying and familiar. Helena in the car with her is a stranger. Sarah cares about her, hates herself for it.

“Yeah?” she says.

Helena doesn’t say anything. Sarah sighs, is reaching to turn the key in the ignition when Helena blurts: “Are there others?”

Sarah stops. “You mean more of us,” she says warily.

“Yes,” Helena says. “More of…us.” She looks visibly uncomfortable to be saying it, and there’s the kick: Helena in the diner across from her, _tell me the names of the others and I will spare you_. Sarah is back in the place in her head where she could stab her. It’s comforting.

“Why?” she says, and starts the car. The motor growls to itself.

“You said that brother- _sestra_ was family because he was one of our sisters,” Helena says. “I did not know I had more sisters. I thought there was only you.”

Sarah navigates them back onto the empty road. The scenery flashes by in the dark. She’s driving because she thinks Helena wouldn’t risk killing her while the car’s in motion, and also this conversation is easier if she doesn’t have to look at Helena at all. “They’re not – we’re twins, meathead,” she says awkwardly.

“Do not call me this.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. I mean—” she sighs. “They’re – they’re sisters, but they didn’t come from the same womb. Okay?”

Frustrated silence. Sarah risks a glance over and watches Helena’s face, night-lit, tear through fifteen years of bullshit in an attempt to find an answer. “They are…people,” Helena says slowly.

“Yeah. They’re good people.”

“But Rachel isn’t.”

“Rachel isn’t good,” Sarah says. “But she’s a person. They’re all people, Helena, I thought you – got it by now?”

“Not really,” Helena mutters to herself. There’s rustling as she shifts in her seat. “Do you love them?”

“I do,” Sarah says quietly.

“Oh,” Helena says. They travel miles and miles in silence. “So—” Scenery skids by outside the windows. “So I should love them.”

“You don’t _have_ to,” Sarah says.

“You love them,” Helena says, like it’s an explanation.

“I’m not your bloody moral compass, Helena,” Sarah bites out between her teeth. “Alright?” She regrets the words as soon as they’re out of her mouth. Obviously in Helena’s mind Sarah _is_ still her moral compass. Fuck. “Shite. I’m sorry. It’s okay. You don’t _have_ to do anything, got it? No one’s gonna be mad if you don’t love them right away.”

“I will love them,” Helena says with determination, “when I meet them.”

“Great,” Sarah says.

“Can you – tell me about the others,” Helena says. “So that. I know them. For when I meet them.”

“Yeah, alright,” Sarah says. “There’s – Cosima. She’s a brilliant scientist, she’s – funny, and smart, and—” (she’s _sick_ ) “and you’d like her.”

“Cosima is brilliant scientist,” Helena parrots back obediently. “Okay. Who else.”

“Alison,” Sarah says. “She’s a mum, like me, she’s got kids – or, she – she’s in rehab right now, but she’s got kids.” She feels the need to emphasize this, like it’s really important that Helena likes Alison. Like kids are the only way to do that. Both of these things feel true, for some stupid reason.

“What is rehab,” Helena says.

“It’s where you go when you’ve got – drinking problems,” Sarah says.

Baffled silence. “Okay,” Helena says. “Who else.”

“That’s it,” Sarah says quietly to the dark. “Just the four of us.”

“Oh,” Helena says. “There would be more of us. If.”

“Yeah,” Sarah sighs at the wheel. “It’s – not your fault, alright? There’d be more of us if all sorts of shit.” If Beth hadn’t jumped. If Beth had waited just another moment. If Beth— “We’ve still got sisters, that’s what’s important.”

“I am glad,” Helena says. Pauses. Adds: “I promise.”

“I believe you,” Sarah says. She stifles a yawn. She also stifles the weird certainty that she does, she believes it. In another, happier life, they’d be driving this car with Cosima and Alison in the backseat, and Helena and Cosima would be jabbering excitedly about something, and Alison and Sarah would be trading amused eyerolls in the rearview mirror, and they’d be Sarah’s family. Makes her heart ache.

“You are yawning,” Helena says.

“Yeah, well,” Sarah says, “it’s late.”

“I can drive,” Helena says, voice coloring with excitement. “I am very good driver. Very fast.”

“Think I’ll pass,” Sarah says. She yawns again. “Shoulda had tea before the road.”

“We can stop,” Helena says, still sounding almost frantic with excitement. “We can sleep in truck.”

“We’ve got to be at Cold River by morning, Helena.”

“It is not so far,” Helena says. “If you get there asleep, you won’t be able to find Swan Man.”

Unfortunately: she makes a point. Sarah sighs. Grudgingly: “We don’t have to sleep in the truck. There’s a tent.”

“I have never been camping before,” Helena says. She sounds like she’s about to die from the joy of camping. Sarah bites the inside of her lip, debates the merits, decides – horror of horrors – that now is the time to introduce Helena to camping. She slows down on the road to look for patches of woods.

“I want to meet them,” Helena says. Sarah makes the mistake of tilting her head to look at her, and her heart twists before she turns back. Helena is sitting with her hands shoved between her thighs, eyes horribly wide and earnest.

“I know,” Sarah says. “I know, Helena.”

“I wanted to tell you this,” Helena says. “So that you know, that I am not still bad, when I say that I am glad that we are here together. That I am here with you. And not them.”

“Oh,” Sarah says.

“But I will love them,” Helena adds hastily.

“No,” Sarah says, “that wasn’t – I wasn’t – didn’t think you were lyin’, Helena.”

“Good,” Helena says, sounding relieved.

“I guess – I’m glad too,” Sarah says awkwardly. “We haven’t really seen much of each other, have we.”

“Not since you shot me,” Helena says, and Sarah swerves a little bit on the road. “Yeah,” she says shakily. “Not since that.”

“But now we are camping together,” Helena says. “So. Everything ended happily afters.”

“Sure did,” Sarah says hoarsely, and pulls them over to a patch of dirt and leaves and trees. Helena has her seatbelt undone before the truck has fully stopped and she bounds out of the car, hopping around the leaves. When the headlights catch her they flash off of the white grinning of her teeth.

Sarah turns the truck off, but it takes a minute for the headlights to flicker out into the dark. They capture Helena before they go, a deer that doesn’t know death is coming, bounding through the light like it couldn’t hurt her. Flashing smiles at Sarah through the windshield like Sarah couldn’t hurt her. Terrible, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

Sarah pulls the key out of the ignition, and makes for the trunk. “Come on,” she says to Helena over her shoulder. “You can help me set up the tent.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
